Venture Concept No. 2

Unfortunately, I did not receive any comments on my first venture concept post. I am not sure why :(

I did get some feedback on my "What's Next" post though, so I am glad we can also incorporate those in this post. I changed and stressed things regarding their comments to me:

One person gave me an extremely interesting insight about my next market. He mentioned to me that I should not only be reaching out to the younger generation to teach them about social media, but to also target the elderly community. The youth is getting exposure at such an early age that they may not need the service as much as the elderly community may. He also mentioned that removing third party comments and photos will be difficult without contacting the host site, such as Facebook. Good point! 

I also received positive feedback saying how rapidly this is becoming a more important service and that I should heavily market high school, college and graduate aged people. I got a recommendation to post my advertisements on Facebook and LinkedIn, as these are the most highly populated sites of my target market (age group and professionals seeking jobs). 

Opportunity:
Those who have the unmet need of my service are people who are currently seeking employment, applying to college, a grad program, or a promotion. Because of this nature, the general age group of my potential customers is 18-25ish. The reason these people are my potential customers are because this is generally the time where there are the most inappropriate photos/posts/memes/etc. on people's social media pages. These things can prevent people from getting the job or getting accepted into school. More and more of our society is becoming online-oriented, which is why our online presence is more important now than ever. Geographically. I'd say this need is mostly focused in the United States. Currently, people have to go through all of their social media platforms themselves to clear out things they don't want their future boss to see. In terms of Google, there is nothing they can do to change what shows up on the first page. Because of this, it is a very big opportunity. This opportunity will be available as long as social media outlets are checked before people get hired! There are also people who LOSE their jobs because of things that have been found on their social media pages from years back.

Innovation:
My service, which I've unofficially named iCleanup, will essentially "clean-up" the customer's online presence. These days, many people do not get hired because of inappropriate content on their social media profiles. iCleanup would manage the customer's various social media platforms, deleting and clearing out anything that could potentially ward off employers (or anyone that could inflict consequence due to online content). Another service we'd provide is perfecting the customer's Google search. With the usage of SEO's (search engine optimization), we could reorganize what shows up on the "top" or "first" page of Google when the customer's name is searched. That way the customer's LinkedIn, portfolio, blog, etc., would show up first rather than a Facebook page or an old MySpace account. The service would also help with going "all the way back" on our various social media accounts to ensure that everything is work-friendly. In terms of payment, there would be a "one time fee" for an overall cleanup. We will also offer a subscription style service where we will constantly monitor a clients personal pages and Google presence.That way, if anything comes up on radar of a negative post about a client, we can have it removed or hidden immediately. This would keep customers longer than just the one time social media cleanup. 


Venture Concept:
Everything comes together here. My innovation will satisfy the need of the opportunity because the target market will no longer have to worry about their online presence preventing them from getting and keeping their job. It will help those who already have a job because they also will not have to worry about something of their past being dug up and getting them in trouble. For those who have things that don't paint them in an attractive light pop-up on Google, the service will help them in an even better way because now things that will help them get the job will show up first. Our subscribed clients will forever have their social media platforms perfect!

Three Minor Elements: 
Secret sauce: close family friend who is an extremely successful venture capitalist
What's next?: Targeting young kids and elderly people to teach them about social media safety and the importance of keeping your reputation pristine on these sites. 
What's next for me?: If this venture launched and was very successful, I would sell it and move on to something new!

Final Reflection

Wow! What a semester. To be honest,  I had such a love/hate relationship with this course. It was somewhat tedious and the interviews were pretty annoying, but I learned so much and have gained so much experience in this area because of it.
The most formative experience in this class for me was actually the Bug List exercise. I think that exercise is also the one that I will remember years down the line. It taught me the most important thing--how an entrepreneur thinks. I never thought before that exercise to simply reflect on life and things that "bug" me. That is definitely the way to find what needs to be fixed aka the opportunities. The most joyous experiences were reading the books. I love to read (especially in the summer when I have more free time). I really enjoyed learning about Elon Musk, Ray Kroc and "how to fail at everything and still win big!" I loved that these readings were incorporated into this class. The experience that I am most proud to have accomplished is the elevator pitch. I normally have been very nervous doing things like that, but I think by the third try I really nailed it. It taught me how to be a salesman and I think that is extremely valuable today in whatever we do.

By now, I don't really see myself as an entrepreneur per se, but I do think that I have developed an entrepreneurial mindset. Like I mentioned above, the idea of the "bug list" and seeing opportunities through that has transformed the way I think. I am constantly thinking how I can make things better or more efficient.

Some advice that I have for students coming down this path in the future is to NOT think that just because a class doesn't have quizzes or exams that it means it is an easy A. To preform best in this course, I recommend staying on top of everything. Not only keeping a careful calendar of due dates, but to start early. If you do not start early, you will find that there is not enough time to finish certain assignments. Even though things are only one point, missing assignments add up. I also would recommend to never miss commenting on your peer's blogs. Comments are worth the same as posts, so why would you not take them seriously?!

Good luck future students and thank you, ENT3003!

Reading Reflection No. 3

Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's by Ray Kroc

1. Something that surprised me about Ray Kroc was that he had an "all or nothing" mentality that caused him to have less than great personal relationships. I admired that he always carried his humble beginnings with him. I did not admire the time in his life in which he sold bad real estate to people. Luckily, he left that profession to go back to selling paper cups honestly. He experienced failure during that time of selling bad real estate. He also experienced failure working as a piano player at a bar that sold illegal liquor. He overcame these mistakes and went back to selling paper cups.

2. Ray Kroc was an extremely good salesman. When selling paper cups, he knew exactly how to get them to restaurants, soda shops, etc. He also was good with keeping connections with them. He was an honest salesman, and never sold a cup to someone who didn't need one. He also was very good at spotting opportunities and taking advantage. When he stumbled upon the invention of the milkshake mixer, he took it to the McDonald's brothers and wound up changing America forever.

3. I was confused upon starting this book because I did not even know who Ray Kroc was! I was under the impression that the McDonald's brothers were the only people involved... I guess I was kind of living under a rock!

4. The first question that I would ask Ray Kroc could be taken as a rude question. I would like to ask him if he regrets the success of McDonald's now that we know how terrible it is for our health. McDonald's contributes to so much of the world's obesity. I wonder if he would have ever guessed that it would result in that. My next question would be if he would do anything differently, what would it be?

5. I think that Ray Kroc's opinion of hard work is doing anything and everything you can to be successful while being HONEST. Honesty was very important to Kroc and I respect that about him. I wish that he was around today so that I could hear his opinions about the current election and the way McDonald's is run today. I wonder if he would approve of what is going on or what he would have to say about everything.  

Celebrating Failure

In high school I was on the track team. I was a great runner--I was in awesome shape in terms of my stamina and speed and ran short distance sprints. When I got to college, varsity track was obviously a thing of the past. I still went for runs from time to time, but it was nothing compared to my old ways.

Now, here I am a junior in college and I have completely lost my skillz!! I used to run a mile in about 6 minutes. Now, I usually do it around 9. This summer, I made it my goal to get back down below 7 minutes. It has been MUCH harder than I anticipated. It definitely falls under the category of "multiple failures."

Though I still haven't brought my time down to what it used to be, each failure has made me a better runner. Every time I ran, I knocked off a couple seconds. So even though I technically failed, I improved. Each failure was (is) one step closer to my ultimate goal.

This is representative of other "failures" in life. I learned that they may seem like failures in the moment, but they are only bringing us closer to the ultimate success. We either learn from them or they make us stronger.

Failure is hard. I personally get very frustrated when I fail. But I know that being successful is a million times more satisfying when it was hard to get there. Succeeding on the first try isn't nearly as rewarding!

What's Next

Existing Market:

Next will be an ongoing service. This will allow the company to make more money because it would be subscription based rather than just a single payment. We would monitor a customer's online presence for them. Whenever something is posted of them by a friend that it inappropriate, offensive or controversial, we would run it by the client and then remove it for them. This way the client's pages would stay in tip-top shape at all times.

During my interviews, I received a lot of encouragement about my idea. Many said they would consider subscribing to the service as an ongoing service. That way, they would never have to worry about inappropriate things of themselves online. Something that stood out particularly (which I mentioned in my Venture Concept post) was an idea to pitch to Facebook and make my service an option upon making a Facebook profile.

I think that in the future of my company would involve more subscriptions rather than one time "clean-ups." This would be more profitable for the company. Also, I would love to get into the idea of potentially making it an option when signing up for different social media sites. (That is definitely a long shot but would be AWESOME.) I would eventually sell the company to help fund my next idea!

New Market:

This was really difficult for me to come up with. Because my service is pretty specific, I'm not sure who else I can really market my service to. Currently, I am selling to anyone who has a social media platform that needs to be cleaned up, anyone who wants their Google search to show important, positive things about them, or people who want their online presence to be monitored by me. I suppose the only radically different market than people who have social media are... people who don't have social media yet.

I can't exactly provide my service to this different market, but I can change up the service to fit them. I can make it a kind of "online presence education" thing. Teach about tips and tricks on keeping your online profiles and searches in shape. Also, I would then be able to sell the subscription to those who are just then making an online profile for the first time. Interviewees for this were my little brother and his 3 friends... they are all 10 years old and the ONLY people I could find within my circle that didn't already have some form of social media already. These interviews were kinda difficult considering they are children and don't really know how social media works. This enforced that my idea about an educational service would actually be a pretty good idea because the kids can learn about the importance of online presence from us.

After reviewing my findings, this market seems to be just as promising as my other market! Because of how prominent social media is in today's society, kids are creating profiles younger and younger. Teaching about the importance of your online image would be extremely beneficial for children. There are already countless programs that focus on cyberbullying and internet safety, but not really any regarding how important it is to keep your online presence in shape for your future.

Venture Concept No. 1

Opportunity:
Those who have the unmet need of my service are people who are currently seeking employment, applying to college, a grad program, or a promotion. Because of this nature, the general age group of my potential customers is 18-25ish. The reason these people are my potential customers are because this is generally the time where there are the most inappropriate photos/posts/memes/etc. on people's social media pages. These things can prevent people from getting the job or getting accepted into school. More and more of our society is becoming online-oriented, which is why our online presence is more important now than ever. Geographically. I'd say this need is mostly focused in the United States. Currently, people have to go through all of their social media platforms themselves to clear out things they don't want their future boss to see. In terms of Google, there is nothing they can do to change what shows up on the first page. Because of this, it is a very big opportunity. This opportunity will be available as long as social media outlets are checked before people get hired! There are also people who LOSE their jobs because of things that have been found on their social media pages from years back.

Innovation:
My service, which I've unofficially named iCleanup, will essentially "clean-up" the customer's online presence. These days, many people do not get hired because of inappropriate content on their social media profiles. iCleanup would manage the customer's various social media platforms, deleting and clearing out anything that could potentially ward off employers (or anyone that could inflict consequence due to online content). Another service we'd provide is perfecting the customer's Google search. With the usage of SEO's (search engine optimization), we could reorganize what shows up on the "top" or "first" page of Google when the customer's name is searched. That way the customer's LinkedIn, portfolio, blog, etc., would show up first rather than a Facebook page or an old MySpace account. The service would also help with going "all the way back" on our various social media accounts to ensure that everything is work-friendly. In terms of payment, there would be a "one time fee" for an overall cleanup. We will also offer a subscription style service where we will constantly monitor a clients personal pages and Google presence.That way, if anything comes up on radar of a negative post about a client, we can have it removed or hidden immediately. This would keep customers longer than just the one time social media cleanup. 


Venture Concept:
Everything comes together here. My innovation will satisfy the need of the opportunity because the target market will no longer have to worry about their online presence preventing them from getting and keeping their job. It will help those who already have a job because they also will not have to worry about something of their past being dug up and getting them in trouble. For those who have things that don't paint them in an attractive light pop-up on Google, the service will help them in an even better way because now things that will help them get the job will show up first. Our subscribed clients will forever have their social media platforms perfect!

Three Minor Elements: 
Secret sauce: close family friend who is an extremely successful venture capitalist
What's next?: maybe teaming up with Facebook so that it could be a subscription option upon making a profile
What's next for me?: If this venture launched and was very successful, I would sell it and move on to something new!

Elevator Pitch No. 3

I didn't receive any feedback about changes, mostly just encouragement. People liked my passion for my idea, so I tried to let that shine through a little more. I kinda think these can be a little cheesy, so I held back a little bit last time. But this time I just completely embraced the cheesiness! Enjoy :)

The pitch: https://youtu.be/QyqU7ReB1sA